(I’ll have some spoilers later as I discuss some of the deeper themes of this movie, but I’ll let you know when they are coming)

So most of the reviews of this movie are coming in fairly mixed, and while it is not without fault, I can’t stop thinking about the themes and the choices made by it’s central characters. That’s when you know you’ve been captivated by a movie. David Fincher is a visual genius. I’ve been a fan ever since he broke out of the music video circuit with Alien3. His movies (Fight Club, Seven, Panic Room, Zodiac, The Game) are all considerably dark movies. They are filled with nihilism, death, fear, and a lot of trippy camera work. Fight Club still remains one of the most poignant studies of existential angst among genX males ever committed to film. In short…Fincher really knows how to speak to guys. Just like Stephanie Meyer has done with women (and my wife) with the whole Twilight series, he knows how to get at our core…what inspires us, what motivates us, and what we are afraid of. In The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, he does it again. At first glance, one might not see the parallels between a high-falutin’, Oscar-baitin’, period sweepin’ epic light Button and a movie like Fight Club, with all it’s blood and subversion, but in truth, thematicaly, they are very similar. Both demand you to answer the question…what do you do with the time you’ve been given? Time is precious…and there is no sense wasting it all with propriety and duty when you should be truly living.

In Button, Brad Pitt plays a man who is aging in reverse, and, setting aside the dramatic aspect of that conceit for a moment, it is a process that I was very skeptical about how Fincher would be pull it off technically. Would they put kids in wrinkled latex makeup? Would they CGI Pitt’s face to someone? In fact, they do a mashup of the two…and it worked sublimely. Standing on the shoulders of Gollum, Bob Zemekis, and Speilberg, Fincher adds a new delicacy to the possibility of CGI to help tell a story. And while I’m speaking about the aging process, let me also say that what was done with Brad Pitt’s love interest Daisy was amazing as well. we see Daisy, played by Cate Blanchett, age from 8 to her 80’s. While various children handle her younger years, Blanchett inhabits her from the slender, porcelin faced ballerina of 23 to the pale, cancer striken ghost of 89 with complete believability. Her face at times digitally morphed onto the bodies of young women and brushed free of wrinkles, while other times, it is enhanced with the translucence that comes with age and a few rounds of chemo. The special effects work on this production is dripping from every shot, but it became seamlessly woven into the fabric of the narrative. While I am gushing about Fincher’s meticulous dedication to detail, let me also geek out for a moment on his method of using film treatment and digital coloring to match his shots to their time periods. While it was usually saved for montage type shots, notice when you watch how the film is processed to look old and scratchy when it’s narrative is in the early 1900’s and into the 20’s. Then later, in the 50’s, the film takes on that golden, warm saturation we see in the color movies from the 50’s. As the film moves into describing what Benjamin was up to throughout the 60’s, 70’s, and 80’s…the footage looks almost like it was captured at that point in history with equipment available at that time. It’s a miniscule detail that I bring your attention to so that you can geek about it with me.

Beyond the technical prowess of the film is the overall theme of time.  Time is precious…so don’t waste it, but there is always time to make up for your mistakes, for your broken relationships.  (Here is where this might get a little spoiler-ish)  In using the device of aging backwards, there is always a sense of urgency within the love story of the two leads.  Benjamin and Daisy are technically the same age, and upon reaching adulthood, are close enough in their outward age to have a relationship.  Although I won’t explain how, they do end up spending the majority of their life together, so saying that it has a happy ending is really up to the viewer.  As Benajmin ages, and the his youth begins to wind him down, he makes a tough parental decision.  His decision made me more uncomfortable than any in the movie.  Jess hated his decision.  Me, I would not have had the strength to go through with his decision as it is as selfless and self-sacrificing as anyone could ever make.  I’ve been telling friends that if they are a husband and a father, they should take a box of kleenex.  Just as 10 years ago, Fincher knew how to speak to a generation of 20 somethings, he now knows just how to pull at the hearts of dudes in their 30’s.  Guys who are trying to be good providers, good dads, sometimes wondering if their life is what they had hoped, or if they have the energy to sustain it, or the strength to do what is right.  I was a wreck, dude.  I felt like the lights came up all too quickly as the credits rolled…wiping the puffy eyes and supressing the pain in my throat.  I know I sound like a wuss, but the story gripped me.

Also, from a purely historical standpoint, the movie is a love letter to the 20th Century.  I wonder how history will paint the 1900s.  It is an era apart from anything before it, and I believe we won’t see anything like it for sometime.  The world changed so much in the years between Benjamin’s birth and Daisy’s death…the movie is bookended by the end of World War I and Hurricane Katrina.  I found myself captivated that so many events and technolgical leaps brought the world into an age of flight, computers, information, communication, and medicine in such a short amount of time.

I am glad to have seen Benajmin’s journey and while his story is a ludicrous conceit, it is a rich study of human interraction and what it means to live.  Go see it.